


Favorite Son

by Red_Tigress



Series: All the Feels One Shots [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Angst, Daddy Issues, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-05
Updated: 2012-05-05
Packaged: 2017-11-04 20:29:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/397912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Red_Tigress/pseuds/Red_Tigress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's impossible to compete for the affections of a dead man. No spoilers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Favorite Son

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this before I saw the movie, but I think it still applies.

Growing up, Tony didn’t see his father much. He had come to expect it. He had more personal time with the butler and robots he built himself than the man related to him by blood. When Howard Stark was around, occasionally he would try to do the whole “father” thing.

And to Howard, that meant regaling his son with tales.

Of Captain America.

A lot of the time spent with his father was time spent listening to how Captain Steven Rogers had chased down the man who murdered his mentor within minutes of being given the super soldier serum. Or how he had taken it upon himself with Howard’s help to sky dive into hostile enemy territory and free American soldiers without fear of death. Or how his final sacrifice had saved the lives of millions of American citizens.

And how even before he was a super soldier, all he wanted to do was fight the good fight, protect the country and his fellow soldiers.

It was fascinating to Tony when he was younger, like it would be to any boy. Every kid needed a hero to look up to. His dad bought him Captain America action figures and he even had a plastic shield he would occasionally throw around the house.  
But as he grew older, and the stories didn’t stop, Tony realized that his father wasn’t talking about just an American hero. He was talking about the son he had lost.

“Dad,” Tony said one day when he was about 10. “You helped make the super soldier serum, right? So you can inject me with it and I can be a new Captain America!” It was a fantasy of a child, yearning for acceptance.  
“There’s only one Captain America, Tony, and you’re not him,” Howard had said harshly.

There is.

Like he was still alive.

Like someone who had died decades before was more important than Howard Stark’s own son, standing right in front of him.

In the years to come, Howard still talked about Steven Roger’s accomplishments in the 40’s more fondly than Tony’s own. It made him reluctant to speak with his dad about anything. He was always nervous that Captain America would come up, and Tony would be compared to an idolized version of a dead man. A comparison he could never hope to overcome. 

So when he met Steve Rogers for the first time well into his adulthood and his career as Iron Man, he hadn’t realized he was carrying such high expectations of the other man until they were shattered.

The man-out-of-time’s uncertainty about the modern world was set against everything Tony’s father had instilled upon him about the soldier’s confidence, bravery, self-assuredness. Here was the son Howard Stark had lost, and he wasn’t anywhere near as perfect as he’d built up Tony to believe.

What was worse was the way Rogers channeled his father’s behavior whenever Tony did something outrageous and flamboyant. So, whenever he was being himself.

The agitated glares, the challenging words. Whenever Steve spoke, he echoed Howard’s disapproval. 

It was a nightmare.

So of course Tony wanted to make him feel the backlash, wanted to make him bleed like his own heart had bled the times he hadn’t lived up to his father’s expectations. 

Which was every time. 

Because somehow, Steve Rogers had. And Tony didn’t think he deserved it.

Tony had become a hero in his own right. No one could argue that. He had suffered, bled, and worked his ass off too. But his father never saw it.

He wasn’t sure why he expected Steve Rogers to immediately know and approve of his sacrifices. But he did. So when Steve threw around insinuations that he was nothing without his armor, it was like a knife twisting in his gut. 

It was then he finally realized the search for his father’s approval was a battle he would never and could never win.

Not when he had only memories and ghosts to do battle with.


End file.
